Main Toolbar

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The Main Toolbar contains several tools for navigating and interacting with your point cloud. It can be docked to the top or bottom of the viewport (or it can be a floating panel). These tools are grouped based on usage. The icon displayed in the toolbar indicates the tool that has been selected for that group.

The Undo/Redo function is only currently available for certain tools. If you need to make any major changes, we recommend that you first save your file using the Save or Save as options in the Project Menu.

Button

Action

Navigate: Move around the point cloud, as opposed to shifting it. Left-click your mouse to choose the center of rotation. This point will be shown by a white ball.

Double-click your mouse to lock the rotation on an exact point. The ball will turn orange. Double-click again to unlock.

2. Translate

Button

Action

Translate: Move your point cloud along different axes. Click on the arrow to choose which axis. Select the square to translate along multiple axes.

3. Rotate

Button

Action

Rotate: Click on the desired axis to rotate your point cloud around that axis.

4. Axis Lock

  • Rotates your point cloud around the selected axis.

  • Right-click and drag to translate along the locked axis.

  • Double-click your mouse to lock the axis on an exact point. The ball will turn orange. You can change the axis while the ball is orange, and the new axis will rotate around the same point.

  • Double-click again to release.

Button

Action

X Axis Lock: Locks the point cloud rotation to the X axis, which is represented by a red line.

Y Axis Lock: Locks the point cloud rotation to the Y axis, which is represented by a green line.

Z Axis Lock: Locks the point cloud rotation to the Z axis, which is represented by a blue line.

5. Selection tools

Button

Action

Select Points: Select and deselect points within the square selection box. This function is good for point cloud cleaning, as well as for selecting targets in the GCP workflow.

Right-click your mouse, or press the Esc key to remove the selection.

Not available when working with meshes.

Select Area: Select a 2D region (often represented as a polygon) in the point cloud to encompass multiple points within that defined area.

Right-click your mouse, or press the Esc key, to remove the selection.

Not available when working with meshes.

Select Volume: Define a 3D region or volume in the point cloud and select all points falling within that defined volume.

When this tool is selected, the color of the point cloud changes to grayscale and a 3D bounding box becomes available. Drag the arrows in the bounding box to select all points within that volume.

This selection tool is useful for tasks such as object extraction or isolating specific structures in the point cloud.

Delete selection: Deletes any points you have selected.

  • Not available when working with meshes.

  • Be careful, as there is no undo function available for this action. Be sure that you want these points deleted before you do so.

6. Cleaning Filters

Button

Action

Decimate by distance filter: Subsamples the point cloud by specifying the minimum distance allowed between points (measured in meters). You can either select or delete the points.

This tool is useful when you want to thin out your point cloud to make it easier to navigate. The smaller the point cloud, the more responsive it will be. You may have to experiment with the settings to achieve the desired result.

There are three input parameters:

  • Minimum distance: Select the minimum distance between points.
    Default setting: 0.01 (1 cm)

  • Point decimated: Specify whether the points should be deleted or selected.
    Default setting: Delete

  • Invert: Inverts the selection calculated by the DBD algorithm.

Not available when working with meshes.

Classic SOR: Removes stray points in a dense point cloud. This filter works out the average distance of each point from its neighboring points. It then rejects the points that are farther than the average distance. All points outside of this distance are considered outliers and can be removed from the dataset. You may have to experiment with the settings to achieve the desired result.

Denoise SOR: Removes noise in a dense point cloud. This filter analyzes the point cloud to identify points that are likely to be noise or outliers. Points that significantly deviate from the expected parameters are considered outliers and are removed from the dataset.

Adaptive SOR: Adaptively removes outliers while considering variations in point density and noise levels across different regions of the point cloud dataset. This filter can be particularly useful in cases where the point cloud has varying levels of detail.

The available parameters vary depending on the SOR type.

  • Nearest neighbor: The number of neighboring points required to calculate the average distance for a given point.
    Default setting: 6

  • Alpha: If Adaptive SOR is selected, this setting controls the adaptability of the filter to local point density variations. A higher value leads to more adaptive thresholding and can be useful for handling data with varying point density. A lower value might make the filter less sensitive to density changes and provide a more uniform filtering behavior.

  • Log Scale: If Denoise SOR is selected, this setting emphasizes details in regions with lower point density and reduce the impact of regions with high point density. It allows the filter to treat points with different magnitudes more uniformly, enhancing the denoising process by effectively dealing with variations in the dataset.

  • nSigma: If Classic SOR is selected, this option will calculate the mean distance from every point to its neighboring points. The result is a normal distribution. You can use decimal values here. The lower the number you choose, the more points will be trimmed from your dataset.
    Default setting: 1

  • Point outlying: Choose whether the outlying points will be deleted or just selected.

  • Invert: Select or delete everything in the point cloud except for the statistical outlying points.

    Not available when working with meshes.

Moving object filter: Removes points over 5 second intervals and keeps fixed points in the environment.
Identifying moving objects within a point cloud is done by estimating statistical scores for points based on their temporal and spatial relationship to their neighborhood. These scores provide a quantitative measure of the likelihood that a point belongs to a moving object, enabling the Moving Object filter to differentiate between dynamic and static elements in the point cloud.

Refer to the Moving Object Filtering section for more information.

  • Motion level: Detects movement over 5 second intervals. The higher the value, the fewer moving points are selected.

    Distance (cm): The maximum distance for recovering fixed points. Larger distances will keep more points.

  • Point outlying: Choose whether the outlying points will be deleted or just selected.

  • Invert: Select or delete everything in the point cloud except for the statistical outlying points.

7. 3D view menu

Button

Action

Focus: Fits the point cloud to your screen.

Front: Shows the front view of the point cloud.

Top: Shows the top view of the point cloud.

Right: Shows the view from the right of the point cloud.

Left: Shows the view from the left of the point cloud.

Back: Shows the back view of the point cloud.

Bottom: Shows the view from the bottom of the point cloud.

8. Measurement tools

Button

Action

Point measurement: Click anywhere in your point cloud to show coordinates for a single point. Click again to clear your selection.

Line measurement: Select any two points to show the distance between them and the coordinates for each point. Click a third point to reset the tool and take another measurement.

Angle measurement: Select three points to measure the angle between them. Shows coordinates for each point.

9. Undo / Redo

Button

Action

The undo/redo actions are currently limited to the following actions:

  • Translate

  • Rotate

  • Point size, point bias, point shape

  • Color scale selector

  • Colorization filter

  • Fill color

  • Scalar gradient, with associated Scalar Filter upper/lower limit and scalar range changes

    The undo and redo functions are not currently available for delete actions, DBD and SOR filters, so be careful when performing these actions. Further functionality will be explored in future releases.